Specimen slide units are known from the state of the art. Thus, for example, specimen slide units are known in the form of conventional slides made of glass onto which the specimen to be examined under a microscope is mounted. A laboratory analysis system comprises, for instance, numerous processing and analysis devices, wherein the specimen slide units are transferred manually or automatically from one processing or analysis device to another. The specimens can likewise be processed or analyzed manually or automatically.
A specimen slide unit made of glass normally has a labeling field on which a marking can be applied with which the specimen located on the specimen slide can be labeled, thus making it identifiable. In the simplest case, relevant information is written manually on the labeling field, meaning that the labeling field is a kind of storage device or data carrier device. However, it is difficult to add additional information to this type of marking, since the marking surface area available for labeling on the specimen slides is small and limited. Moreover, the legibility of the marking is often impaired since the writing on the specimen slide can be smeared or the writing can be unclear. If the specimen slides have to be stored for several years to serve as court evidence, for example, in forensic technology, in scientific expert opinions or in pathological examinations, handwritten marking of the specimen slides is not suitable since it is likely that the labeling will be destroyed as the years go by.
The specimen slides can also be labeled by means of barcodes. The barcode applied onto the specimen slide constitutes the data carrier device that can be read out by a barcode reader. Since the amount of information that can be stored on a one-dimensional barcode depends especially on its length or, in the case of a two-dimensional barcode, on its surface area, and since only short barcode lengths are possible because of the limited space available on a conventional specimen slide, the amount of data that can be stored on a specimen slide in this manner is limited. Moreover, the stored information cannot be subsequently changed unless the barcode is destroyed.
German patent application DE 100 10 140 A1 describes a device for handling and/or processing specimens, preferably automatically, in which the specimens are taken to a processing station by means of a specimen slide and, after having been processed, are taken away from there. The specimen slide of DE 100 10 140 A1 can comprise an electric storage medium in which specimen information can be stored. The electric storage medium can have a transponder. Consequently, this constitutes contact-free data transmission between a storage medium, for example, an EPROM component, and a read/write device, whereby this data had previously been stored in the storage medium. For purposes of reading out the information, the energy needed by the transponder, which usually functions passively, is generated inductively by the read/write device. Hence, a transponder unit consists at least of one coil and of the storage medium.
The read-out speed is relatively slow so that a transponder has to be present in the range of action of the read/write device for at least an appropriate time span. If several transponders are simultaneously present in the range of action (detection area) of a read device, then the transponder data will be read out erroneously since an unambiguous identification that is not influenced by other transponders is not possible. Consequently, the user must ensure that only one transponder is present in the range of action of the read device.